Writer, Adventurer

Bio

A former U.S. Air Force special operations pilot and a veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Nolan Peterson is a conflict journalist and travel writer whose adventures have taken him to all seven continents.

Foreign correspondent for The Daily Signal, he lives in Kyiv, Ukraine, with his wife Lilya.

As a war correspondent, Peterson has reported extensively from the front lines in eastern Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Iraq. In the summer of 2015 he was the first American journalist to embed with Ukraine’s regular army in combat.

In October 2015 he retraced the path of Tibetan refugees on a solo hike across the Himalayas from Nepal to China. He also spent several months on assignment in the Himalayas reporting on Tibetan freedom fighters.

A Florida native, Peterson graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 2004 with a bachelor’s degree in political science and a minor in French. He attended graduate school at the Sorbonne in Paris, France from 2004 from 2006, where he studied politics and French literature. After leaving the Air Force in 2011, Peterson completed a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, where he was a McCormick Foundation fellow.

Peterson’s unique life experiences are the bedrock of his unique writing and journalism style. In addition to his time in the military and work as a journalist, he has run a marathon across a glacier in Antarctica, swum across the Hellespont from Europe to Asia, climbed mountains in the Himalayas, and completed Ironman triathlons. He travelled to all seven continents before age 30.

CV

The Daily Signal—Foreign correspondent. 2015-present, currently on assignment in Ukraine.

Currently based in Ukraine, covering the conflict in the Donbas from the front lines (in the trenches about once a month) and Russian aggression throughout Eastern Europe, as well as related U.S. military exercises and operations.

Hiked solo across the Himalayas from Nepal to Chinese border to retrace the route of Tibetan refugees as part of a two-month-long project to report on Tibetan freedom fighter veterans of a covert CIA operation against China in occupied Tibet during the Cold War.

Work in Ukraine, Iraq and the Himalayas republished by Newsweek, CNN, the National Interest, the Epoch Times, the Kyiv Post, Novoe Vremya, and Real Clear Defense.

Granted exclusive access to the United Kingdom’s unmanned aerial vehicle program at an undisclosed location in the Persian Gulf region in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, 2016.

Embedded with U.S. Special Operations Forces in Iraq, 2015.

Embedded with Kurdish Peshmerga forces in combat outside of Mosul and in Sinjar, Iraq, 2016.

The Daily Signal’s first foreign correspondent.

Blue Force Tracker—War correspondent, Ukraine 2014

Embedded with Ukrainian military units and independently reported from the war’s front lines.

Blue Force Tracker—Cofounder and Editor

Cofounded and managed a multimedia news site comprising journalists who were all U.S. military veterans.

Designed and managed a website and the mobile application, raised venture capital, developed a business plan, secured advertising and recruited and trained a team of more than 20 military veterans as journalists.

Lead writer contributing op-eds and news articles.

United Press International—War Correspondent, Afghanistan, 2013.

Embedded with frontline U.S. and Afghan military units and went on combat patrols to write a series of stories on the war, Taliban operations and the NATO drawdown.

Managed the program’s website, edited student stories, promoted content through social media and produced enterprising content for professional military journalists.

Freelance Journalist

Covered a wide range of topics, including North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, and a U.S. Army veteran fighting in the Syrian Civil War.

Published by: Newsweek, Runner’s World, Newsmax, The Chicago Journal, The Austin Weekly News, The Times of Northwest Indiana, The Active Times, Checkpoints Magazine, Fox News, The Daily Caller, and the Medill National Security Initiative.

Creative nonfiction writing has also been featured in the literary journal, “War, Literature & the Arts.”

National Strategy Forum—Research Assistant, 2011-2012. Chicago, IL.

Staff writer and researcher covering international strategy and national security issues.

Guest lecturer at Northwestern University and Embry-Riddle University.

Lectured on military culture and conflict reporting to undergraduate journalism students.

Authored a how-to guide for military journalists for the Medill National Security Initiative.

Guest Speaker, Lviv Media Forum, 2015, 2017

Speaker on conflict journalism for the largest media forum in Eastern Europe.